Music of the Spheres

Yorkshire Building Society Band
Conductor: Professor David King
Egon Recordings: SFZ124
Total Playing Time: 66.54

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"Si monumemtum requiris, circumspice"

The greatest architectural achievement of its age, St. Paul's Cathedral is the lasting testament to its creator, Sir Christopher Wren: "If you seek my monument, look around you." It remains the defining edifice of his long and varied career and retains to this day the ability to inspire feelings of awe at its intrinsic beauty and technical accomplishment.

In terms of the confines of the brass band movement, this CD release from Professor David King and his Yorkshire Building Society Band may well be the musical equivalent of Wren's masterpiece; as with the news that the financial partnership between the band and the parent company ending, this recording can be seen as the final crowning glory of a truly unique brass band in the history of our movement. It is prescient to add however, that this is not a memorial release, as even though the financial partnership may end after a decade, the band itself will surely continue to prosper under a new identity. The analogy is not misplaced either, as in time the achievements of this combination may well be been seen in context as one of greatest of the its age. If you wish to seek the defining musical monument to David King and the Yorkshire Building Society Band, then this CD is it.

The band he created from the terminally ailing Hammonds Sauce Works Band, was indeed a reflection of both the Australian's personality and musical endeavour to succeed after his tenure at Black Dyke. In the 11 years since they won every major honour in the banding world with the exception of the National Championships - a truly magnificent record of multiple contesting achievements, and whilst the failure to claim a "National" can been seen by his detractors as a significant omission on his contesting CV, in overall musical terms of his contribution to the movement as a whole, it becomes a minor (and probably temporary) exclusion.

That 11 year period has also seen recordings of immense importance as well as concert performances at showpiece events that have been genuinely ground breaking, and at times revolutionary. It is however, the consistent brilliance of their contest performances that has secured their place in banding history, and it is questionable, whether in the post 1945 period there has been a contesting band to match them.

In 1999 they won three of the four "majors", yet even those winning efforts pale in significance to the quartet of performances which they produced in 2004 at the Yorkshire Regional Championships, European Championships, All England Masters and British Open.  Although those "live" performances can never be recreated in the recording studio, this release provides us with what could arguably be described as the finest set of definitive test piece recordings ever assembled on one CD. Just like St. Paul's Cathedral, the beauty and technical brilliance on show here is simply awe-inspiring.

The first studio recording of 'Harrison's Dream' is a major musical landmark. The winning contest performance at the Masters was not YBS at their scintillating best, but this rendition of Peter Graham's fine work surely now sets out the musical blueprint for all others to try and emulate. The sheer brilliance of the technical playing in terms of clarity and precision is coupled to an ethereal beauty in the reflective sections that combine to genuinely moving effect. The fulcrum of the whole piece however is fully realised during the section when the composer evokes the emotional turmoil of the drowned souls: the unworldly whispers of torment, of sorrow and repentance are coupled to surreal echoes of tear drops and distant chimes and brings to mind those pictures of medieval religious torment in the paintings of, Pieter Brueghel. 

In the sleeve notes, the composer himself thanks the MD and the Band for producing such an intuitive and emotional reading of his work, whilst there should be a special mention to the Producer Brian Hillson and Engineer Daniel Lock for their splendid contribution, not only here but also throughout the recording as a whole.

Martin Ellerby's, 'Tristan Encounters' was first used at a major contest in 1999, when YBS and David King produced the winning performance at the All England Masters. In 2004 it was chosen as the set work for the top section bands at the Regional Championships and it proved a very demanding test of musicianship and technical proficiency. The standard of winning performances throughout the UK varied from the merely competent to the excellent, but it was YBS in winning the Yorkshire Regional Championships that produced "the performance" of the test piece of the whole qualifiers. 

Those lucky enough to have witnessed that performance will be delighted to hear that on this studio recording none of that vibrancy has been lost in the series of fourteen "transfigurations" that form the core of composition. Even the fiendishly difficult series of quasi cadenzas in transfiguration XII (a section that the composer himself remains unhappy with in relation to the musical context of the whole work) are played in such a musically coherent fashion by the soloists that they form a linear connection between the powerfully rhythmic movements that surround them.

It is an immensely powerful performance; one that has a distinctive musical approach by the MD (the final bars are stretched - although this has been done in discussion and agreement with the composer for this recording) and one that has a real distinctive difference in styles and timbre in each of the transfigurations. As the composers himself states, "Tristan Encounters" is a musical tableaux of mood pictures, and this is certainly fully realised in this performance.

What is there left to be said about 'Contest Music'? Wilfred Heaton's "Magnus Opus" remains a truly magnificent musical achievement, although there are many who would disagree with Paul Hindmarsh's assumption that it combines the scope and scale of a Haydn symphony, Mozart divertimento, Bartok quartet or Stravinsky ballet. It is perhaps none, or all of these depending on your understanding of these composers' works, but what it defiantly is, is a unique brass band composition.

Hindmarsh himself produces a wonderful insight into the context of the work (although it was "unveiled" in the UK on the contest platform in 1982 and not 1984 as stated) in one of the series of excellent sleeve notes that accompany the release, and although the informed listeners may or may not agree with his thoughts, you will certainly agree that this is a colossal performance. Each of the movements is thrillingly brought to life - the outer sections with a clarity and balance in the ensemble that is at times frightening, whilst the middle movement has a feeling of sombre reflection - dark and brooding with a hint of unfulfilled menace. It is a most compelling account of perhaps our most compelling work for brass band of the 20th century. 

That leads us finally to 'Music of the Spheres' by Philip Sparke and which the MD, for their defence of their 2004 European title commissioned.

Over the years David King has continually raised the concept of the musical bar for what a brass band can achieve both musically and technically. The development of the genre of thematic musical suites, such as 'Hymn of the Highlands' are examples of his innate ability to continually explore new facets of brass performance, but it wasn't until this commission that he specifically turned his attention to the idiom of the contest test piece.  The result is a work that takes test piece composition into a new, as until now, unexplored territory. 

The eighteen and a half minute work examines the theoretical relationship between the cosmos and musical scale of note ratios. It may on the face of it seem implausible to create a brass band composition from a notional theory, yet the composer does so on a breathtaking kaleidoscopic canvas of colour, shade and timbre allied to an elastic ability to stretch the abilities and frontiers of brass playing to a new dimension. He could only do this with a band of such talent as this, and there is little doubt that perhaps no other combination could make it come off so with such panache.

It is a fascinating piece of sheer intuitiveness and self expression and it lays before you the future of brass band composition for all to see in its technicolor brilliance. The performance itself rivets you to your seat from start to finish.

It concludes perhaps one of the most important and significant recordings for brass band in the movement's history. It also provides us with the evidence to suggest that Professor David King and the Yorkshire Building Society Band were, in this incarnation (they will hopefully continue to prosper under a new identity) one of the greatest brass bands in our entire history as well. Just like Wren and his personal monument to greatness, this recording could well be the same for Professor David King.

Iwan Fox

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